Grain of hope for rice research

Fund will help raise output, ensure there is no shortage that may send prices soaring
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 26 Nov 09;

A FUND to support research into rice - a food staple for half the world - has been launched in Singapore.

The money will go towards continuing research into securing the supply of rice, rice genetics and climate change.

The ultimate aim is to ensure that rice output does not plateau and to forestall shortages that will send rice prices rocketing again like they did last year.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) headquartered in the Philippines is behind this fund-raising effort, the first major one for rice.

It aims to raise US$300 million (S$416.5 million) by 2012 from individuals, organisations and companies, and hopes to appeal to young wealthy Asians interested in philanthropy, said IRRI's director-general Robert Zeigler.

The fund has so far secured US$59 million, including $50 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; a further $20 million to $25 million from other donors is in the pipeline.

Dr Zeigler said the not-for-profit IRRI has, in the last 50 years, been working quietly behind the scenes to raise rice output.

Its research areas include developing rice varieties that can resist flooded conditions, droughts, pests and disease.

Half the world's rice is dependent on rainfall, and the other half, on irrigation. When rice stands in water, the greenhouse gas methane is produced. IRRI has been trying since the early 1990s to come up with a way to reduce the amount of methane produced.

A research collaboration between IRRI and the National University of Singapore (NUS) is being planned; funds will have to be secured for this early next year.

The researchers, also to be drawn from the Temasek Life-Sciences Laboratory, will study drought- and flood-resistant rice varieties and look into raising the yield as well as the plant's resistance to fungal disease.

Professor Prakash Kumar of NUS' department of biological sciences, the liaison person for the collaboration, said: 'This fund is timely as investment in rice research has been dwindling in the last decade. Governments have all realised that in the next 20 to 30 years, we must increase food production by 50 per cent, which will be impossible without investment.

'Scientists think that with funding, we can get that increase and the IRRI can see that through.'

President S R Nathan and Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan attended the launch.

The minister pointed out that because Singapore was not a rice-producing nation, it should not take its supply lightly.

'Rice plays a fundamental role in Singapore - economically, culturally and socially. Between 2005 and 2008, our rice consumption rose by about 40 per cent, from 197,000 tonnes to 275,000 tonnes,' he noted.